How to Turn Your Passion into a Profitable Digital Planner
“Live your passion” has become the catchphrase of our time. But when it comes to digital planners, it’s not just about living your passion, it’s about finding ways to share your passion with others so that you can make a living doing what you love. As you tune into what you’re truly passionate about, you’ll discover that your passion makes you unique. And that unique passion will become your digital planner niche.
Chances are if you feel passionate about something, then others probably do too. They’ll identify with your interest and will want to find ways to manifest that interest in their own lives.
A digital planner is a great way to offer your passion to the world. Then others can benefit from your unique talents and knowledge every single day of the year. If you have useful and unique ways to solve problems and organize tasks, chances are other people will benefit from them too.
When you find your niche, then you’ve also found your clients. Because if you find just one other person who has been searching for the planner you designed, then for sure there will be others out there looking for the same thing.
If you’re worried that somebody else is probably already selling what you’d like to sell, don’t. There’s always a gap in the market for creative/niche planners. Your ideas will have an audience, you just have to decide what area you want to focus on.
If you’re ready to take the leap, here are the four steps to turning your passion into a digital planner.
Step 1 Brain dump your digital planner ideas
Brain dump all of the things you are passionate about. Don’t hold back or judge yourself. Just write everything down, no matter how silly or insignificant you think it may seem.
Then tease out the things you think will resonate with others. What kinds of problems are the people you know looking to solve? Of the things on your list, which one(s) seem to be the most viable to turn into a planner?
Then start doing proper market research by looking on Etsy, Facebook, and Pinterest. Find out what other people in these niches are doing. Look at the features, styles, and prices, and note what ways you can contribute to this niche with your own planner? If you can spot an area that someone isn’t addressing yet, then you know your product will have an audience.
Need help with an idea? Check out this quiz to find your zone of genius and decide which digital planner you should create and sell.
Step 2 Outline your digital planner
Depending on your passion, this part will look different for everyone. Things such as pages, sections, layout, lists, and stickers will be unique to your idea and should reflect the style of your niche.
Your planner doesn’t have to have generic pages like daily, weekly and monthly. It could be totally different. It could have sections that are relevant to your niche and nothing else.
Check out these different planner ideas:
Etsy Seller Planner – For those who either already have an Etsy shop or are thinking of creating one, this planner is designed to support your sales success. From sections on research, product tracking, promotions, finances and notes, and a tasks section where you can keep track of daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly tasks, this planner is uniquely designed for digital product sellers on Etsy.
Blog Planner – If you want to start a blog or already have one, this planner will help you keep all the important tasks of blog planning in order. From sections to help you manage your affiliates to opt-in ideas to a keyword list and notes section and a place to track your stats and blog ideas, you won’t have to worry about organizing things for your blog anymore.
Digital Project Planner – There are a lot of elements that go into digital project planning and this planner can save you from becoming overwhelmed or forgetting important tasks. From sections on action plans, weekly and daily tasks, milestones, budgets, brain dumps, and goals, this planner has all you need to stay on track with your digital project dream.
See how these planners have sections that are relevant to the needs of the niche? You don’t have to follow any pre-established planner “rules.” You can create and design your planner exactly as you want it. As you start organizing your ideas for your unique planner, outline each page and make a plan to start designing.
Need help with this step? Want to cut down the time it takes to create and finish your digital planner?
Check out my Digital Planner Kits - customizable and editable templates so you can turn your idea and passion into a product you can sell in a day!
Step 3: Choose a design program to design your digital planner
There are many different design programs out there to choose from, but I’ll select a few of the top ones. Find the one that’s right for you, whether a more simple or more complex program depending on your skills and the type of planner you’re creating.
Apple Keynote
Works only on Mac and iPad
Super-fast to add hyperlinks
Tends to produce large files that take up a lot of space
Price: Free for Mac users. iCloud version is available for Windows users.
Affinity Publisher
Works with both Mac and Windows
A bit slow with the hyperlinks
Easy to export and compress files without losing quality
Price: Full version is $49.99, iPad version is $19.99
PowerPoint
Works with both Mac and Windows
Customizable templates to make your planner
Price: $6.99/month
Google Slides
Works with both Mac and Windows
Customizable templates to make your planner complete with hyperlinks
Automatically saves work
Works with PowerPoint
Price: Free
Adobe InDesign
Works with Mac and Windows
A complete digital designer package
Best for more experienced designers
Price: Free trial, then $49/mo.
Step 4: Sell your digital planner on Etsy
There are many platforms where you can sell your digital planner. I really like Etsy and got my start there as a digital designer. Etsy has a big following and is a perfect place to sell if you’re just starting your digital planner business.
Etsy shop set up
Write your bio, including your story and background. Customers will enjoy reading your journey and why you started selling digital planners.
Include FAQ about your digital planner to help customers use your product more easily.
Choose a style that speaks to your niche.
Listing on Etsy
Choose a shop name that is unique and reflects your product
Upload a beautiful product photo
Consider keywords searches in your item descriptions to grab the attention of the right customers
Upload your digital planner files for purchase
Establish your price through researching the price range of your competitors.
Need help with Etsy? Grab my Etsy guide and Etsy seller planner here!
Final thoughts!
You can start an online business in no time by selling your very own digital planner. All it takes is a dream and a vision. Find what you’re naturally passionate about and share it with others and earn passive income with a digital planner business.
My Digital Planner Kits offer a lot of benefits to designers who are starting out or who want to cut down on the amount of time it takes to create a planner from scratch:
Created with a niche in mind
Sell unlimited designs and products
Comes with 13 tutorial videos to customize and use the templates
You get lifetime access!
